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Shops at Waterloo Town Square
I would wager heavily that more people from Barrelyards would go to Valumart than to Vincenzo's. The latter is a fantastic place but it's less of a grocery store then is Valumart.
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(08-24-2016, 11:19 AM)jamincan Wrote: The outward-facing commercial units definitely seem to do much better there. I almost wonder if they wouldn't be better off taking off the roof and making it an open-air mall as there is distinctly unpleasant about entering the mall itself. Once the LRT opens up, I expect traffic through the mall will increase due to people cutting through and things will improve a bit. The present situation has got to be the absolute worst case scenario for them.

Maybe it's because the mall is eerily quiet. Even though the outward facing sidewalks aren't necessarily bustling, you still get to hear the sounds of the outdoors - traffic, birds, wind...

And yeah, Vincenzo's supply of certain things is definitely pretty limited. Personally I don't care that it doesn't have much microwave dinners, frozen dinners, cereal, etc, but even things like yogurt, milk, juice, sour cream were quite limited from what I remember.
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Given that the Shops is in the middle of the LRT construction, I'm not surprised that business is down. Once regular transit, vehicle and pedestrian access resumes, things will hopefully pick up again.
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The Shops have been ghostly since years before LRT construction started.
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Staff recommending the City of Waterloo, "authorize the release of $165,000 from the Environmental Clean-up Reserve to conduct a risk assessment in cooperation with the landowner at 95 King
Street South.":
http://calendar.waterloo.ca/Module/Calen...08ed47618f (page 84, map page 88)

"In early 2005, localized soil and groundwater contamination was discovered at the Waterloo Town Square by consultants acting on behalf of the City of Waterloo and WCI Holdings Inc. (i.e. “WCI Inc.”). The subsurface impacts were caused by a historical release of chlorinated solvent compounds from a former land use near the southeast corner of King Street and the Willis Way extension. Although localized in extent, the contamination exceeded applicable provincial standards and required remediation. To support site redevelopment and land exchanges required by the City and WCI Inc., both parties entered into a RAP legal agreement with the Region of Waterloo. The RAP required pre-development clean-up of impacted soils and contained provisions for longer-term remediation of impacted groundwater. A numbered company (1899038 Ontario Inc.) has acquired the real estate at 95 King Street South and is obligated to fulfill the legal commitments originally made by WCI Inc."

"The City and the landowner have a 50/50 cost sharing arrangement in place to jointly pay for the remediation costs."
Everyone move to the back of the bus and we all get home faster.
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Noticed three new leased units in the Shops today. The old coffee shop unit across from ValuMart on the corner, the one between that unit and the old Reitman's, and the unit next to the Uptown Gallery. No sign of who has leased the unit yet.
Everyone move to the back of the bus and we all get home faster.
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Retro Replay, a video game store based on Ainslie St. in Galt will be moving in: https://www.facebook.com/retroreplay.ca/
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(08-14-2017, 08:19 PM)Lens Wrote: Retro Replay, a video game store based on Ainslie St. in Galt will be moving in: https://www.facebook.com/retroreplay.ca/

Great addition! Uptown definitely needed a good video game store.
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The florist Hearts and Flowers is moving from the Westmount Plaza to Waterloo Town Square and opening September 5.
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it looks like the old coffee shop on the interior, across from ValuMart, is the new home of the florist.

I often wondered if the owners of the mall have ever considered altering some of the units along the Caroline side to be more external facing or even sacrificing one of the units and making it into an access to the mall from Caroline to generate more foot traffic through the mall.
Everyone move to the back of the bus and we all get home faster.
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(08-31-2017, 11:32 PM)Pheidippides Wrote: it looks like the old coffee shop on the interior, across from ValuMart, is the new home of the florist.

I often wondered if the owners of the mall have ever considered altering some of the units along the Caroline side to be more external facing or even sacrificing one of the units and making it into an access to the mall from Caroline to generate more foot traffic through the mall.

The corridor to the washrooms already exits out to Caroline, but I believe it is an alarmed emergency exit only. The corridor is a bit narrow but with good design could be useable as an alternate albeit not ideal entrance. Or it probably could be widened a little bit into an adjacent unit without removing the entire unit.
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With an ION station opening on Caroline Street, I could see some advantage to access from that side. I remember doing my laundry at the laundromat over there years ago.
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(09-01-2017, 09:00 AM)timc Wrote: With an ION station opening on Caroline Street, I could see some advantage to access from that side. I remember doing my laundry at the laundromat over there years ago.

Of course there would need to be access across Caroline St., which right now officially does not exist between Erb and the south end of the ION platform, although it seems there will soon be a crossing just north of Father David Bauer.
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Just noticed that the new building has a pass through to the parking lot from Willis that is aligned with the current mid-block crossing.
   

I wonder what the plan for that would be when the lot behind gets redeveloped?
Everyone move to the back of the bus and we all get home faster.
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If it leads to a blank wall, possibly the same thing that happened to UW's South Campus Hall breezeway: it will be filled in.
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